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It’s crazy, but one of the most dangerous things you can do is visit the hospital. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that nearly two million hospital patients contract a healthcare-associated infection (HAI) every year, and 90,000 of those HAIs result in death. These infections — superbugs such as MRSA and Clostridium difficile (C. diff) — are caused by bacteria being transferred from patient to patient, usually via a doctor or nurse. Hand washing is by far the simplest solution to these 90,000 unnecessary deaths, but getting healthcare professionals to reliably wash their hands has proven to be difficult. This is where IBM and its low-power mote technology (LMT) comes in.

According to the CDC, 1 in 20 patients contract an HAI while visiting hospital, resulting in 1.7 million infections. These HAIs, while not particularly difficult to treat in healthy adults, play havoc with newborns and intensive care patients, resulting in 90,000 deaths per year and an additional $30 billion in healthcare costs. Many of these deaths could be avoided by adequate hand washing before treating each patient, but the latest research says that doctors and nurses only wash their hands 50% of the time. IBM hopes to boost that percentage, and significantly reduce the number of HAI-related deaths and healthcare costs, with some new tech.

The setup is very simple: At one of OhioHealth’s hospitals in Ohio, IBM has covered two floors of the hospital with a network of 100 LMT sensors — in hallways, doorways, and at hand-washing stations. Each doctor and nurse is given an RFID-enabled work badge, allowing the LMT network to track their movements around the hospital. If a doctor or nurse enters a patient’s room, and then fails to use the hand-washing station, that transgression is logged by a central server.

The central server then performs “compliance processing,” producing a web page that shows an hourly “compliance report” for each card-carrying staff member. It can also produce a weekly report, showing the average compliance level for a given job role, work shift, and so on. Given that the current compliance rate is so low (50%), IBM’s tech could make a massive change, saving thousands of lives and billions of dollars in healthcare costs.

There’s no word on when IBM’s LMT will be rolled out to more hospitals, but presumably it hinges on whether the OhioHealth trial is successful or not. In the mean time, if you have the misfortune of being a hospital patient, there are a few things that you can do to reduce your chances of getting an healthcare-associated infection. Remind doctors, nurses, and any visitors to wash their hands when they come to see you. Wash your own hands, every time you come into contact with germ-carrying surfaces (bathrooms, door knobs, hands). And, of course, keep your wounds clean and dry — if your injection or catheter site becomes moist or dirty, tell a nurse.

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Dozerman

Somewhere out there, my uber-religions mother is screaming about the mark of the beast and Obama’s chips in our hands. You may think I’m kidding, but people actually will refuse to use this because it reminds them too much of the biblical MotB. I’ve seen teachers where I grew up refuse to use a thumbprint scanner because “it was leading us towards the devil’s mark.”

Morons will kill us all.

Singh1699

Difference between work badge, and chip implant.

Work badge = less germs in me

Chip Implant Attempt = more bullet in you

Dozerman

B-but, muh transhumanisim….

Purple-Stater

So, you’re response to “Morons will kill us all” is a remark about killing people?

Singh1699

There’s a big difference between swearing a hippocratic oath and not following it. You are putting the lives of those entrusted to your care in danger.
Vs, a political rule putting a chip in my arm because I am rebellious.
I am a Sikh, I will always be rebellious. You can kill me, but others will stand. The crown, and chakram on top of it will stand cut you.
“Our English cavalry with their blunt swords were most unequally matched against the Sikhs with tulwars so keen of edge that they would split a hair…
I remember reading of a regiment of British cavalry charging a regiment of Sikh calvary. The latter wore voluminous thick puggries round their heads, which our blunt swords were powerless to cut through, and each horsemen had also a buffalo hide shield on his back. They evidently knew that the British sword was blunt and useless, so they kept their horses still and met the British charge by laying flat on their horses’ necks, with their heads protected by their thick turbans and their backs by their shields; and immediately the British soldiers passed through their ranks, the Sikhs swooped round on them and struck back-handed with their sharp, curved swords, in several instances cutting our cavalry men in two”. (Sgt. William Forbes Mitchell (93rd Sutherland Highlanders)
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Do you understand the difference?

Singh1699

There’s a big difference between swearing a hippocratic oath and not following it. You are putting the lives of those entrusted to your care in danger.
Vs, a political rule putting a chip in my arm because I am rebellious.
I am a Sikh, I will always be rebellious. You can kill me, but others will stand. The crown, and chakram on top of it will stand cut you.
“Our English cavalry with their blunt swords were most unequally matched against the Sikhs with tulwars so keen of edge that they would split a hair…
I remember reading of a regiment of British cavalry charging a regiment of Sikh calvary. The latter wore voluminous thick puggries round their heads, which our blunt swords were powerless to cut through, and each horsemen had also a buffalo hide shield on his back. They evidently knew that the British sword was blunt and useless, so they kept their horses still and met the British charge by laying flat on their horses’ necks, with their heads protected by their thick turbans and their backs by their shields; and immediately the British soldiers passed through their ranks, the Sikhs swooped round on them and struck back-handed with their sharp, curved swords, in several instances cutting our cavalry men in two”. (Sgt. William Forbes Mitchell (93rd Sutherland Highlanders)
-
Do you understand the difference?

Singh1699

If sumer is among the first civilizations, and it talks of annunaki then..

On top of that if other semetic cultures share the same story, it means that we’ere supposed to be scared of some blue looking aliens from a sun-less planet?

“Remind doctors, nurses, and any visitors to wash their hands when they come to see you.”

I doubt they’ll take kindly to being told what to do by their patients.

Heath Parsons

Then I doubt the doctors need my monies. If one don’t do something as simple as washing his hands, do you think I am going to trust said person with MY healthcare? Nope. I would gtfo.

Keith Locw

As patient you don’t Instruction. Just you can complain in their HR Deportment. if you can do it is Enough.

http://stephenjones2013.wordpress.com/ Stephen Jones

This is great! And a small price to pay to help prevent ~100,000 hospital deaths that never should have happened. A related story of mine is quite shocking. Few years ago, my wife is in for a straightforward shoulder surgery and is being prepped and an IV started. A bit later, my wife moves around in the bed, and dislodges the IV tubing at the connector, and the end falls on the floor, so we call the nurse back in. She begins to plug the damn thing right back until, but just before I had to shout to stop her, and demanded she get a new sterile tube. It fell on the floor and the open end was on the floor, and she was a registered nurse. She had a look of indignation on her face, after I asked for a replacement; a sterile one! That was an unbelievable experience, and makes we wonder about the education these “professionals” receive, or are they just that lazy? This happened at a well respected hospital, which I will leave un-named. Things that make one want to scream from the rooftops! :-)

Heath Parsons

but…the 5 second rule.

http://stephenjones2013.wordpress.com/ Stephen Jones

yeah, but that rule is for food that falls on the floor ..LOL!!!

Keith Locw

After Spend on Protection their charges is unlimited Every one don’t pay Easily. If the government provide Free of coast Electric Supply and Hand Washing machine in Every Hospital it is great.

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